


gathering viscous glass

by tealseal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love, and i don't fucking know why, au: kenma didn't dye his hair blond, happy ending for kuroken but not for tendou, i swear i'm not fucking around, kenma looks like sadako, look it up on his wiki page, sorry :(, tendou thinks sadako is cute, that's canon, the (kendou??? tenma?? help) is one-sided, the kuroken is established, wrote this instead of sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealseal/pseuds/tealseal
Summary: tendou becomes enamored with something he can never reach.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma/Tendou Satori
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	gathering viscous glass

**Author's Note:**

> i have. no excuse? for this? to anyone who reads it: i'm sorry??? i'll be back with my usual fluff next time, i promise. xoxo

I.

The first time he sees him is at Nationals in his second year of high school. Satori doesn't normally pay close attention to the faces of the people on the other side of the net. After all, he's there to crush them, not to make friends.

But today, as they go up against a scrappy Tokyo school—someone called them cats, maybe? He can't remember, and he doesn't particularly care—he's drawn, not to his opponents, but to a small figure on the sidelines, hunched over in a red jersey, face obscured by dark curtaining hair. 

He's instantly reminded of an old favorite, _The Ring_ , and he can't help but smile to himself. He'd been so terrified to watch it, but he'd forced himself anyway, all for a childhood celebrity crush. 

He's always had a thing for the peculiar, he supposes. 

And here, today, on the other side of the court, looking like they'd rather be anywhere than right there, stands this mystery person, who looks strikingly like the actress Satori had once kept a poster of on his wall, despite the ominous font and the creepy soulless eyes. 

He wants to get closer. 

But, he remembers a little belatedly, he has a game to win. Wakatoshi reminds him with a pat on the shoulder, only the briefest of touches. _We're starting_. 

The scrappy cats are cleverer than they look, and Satori loses himself in the exhilaration of his guessing game. There's another middle blocker, though, who keeps outsmarting him, a tall one with stupid messy hair and a smirk that would put a tungsten needle to shame. They're well-matched, which is incredibly irritating. 

During a water break, Satori occupies himself with trying to burn holes into the annoying rooster-headed boy just by staring. Predictably, Rooster-Head pays him no mind, instead choosing to wander over to the reserve players to talk to—ah. The Sadako-lookalike, the one Satori noticed earlier. He almost forgot, but Sadako looks up at Rooster-Head and the dark curtains fall back just a little, and suddenly, Satori is riveted.

Sadako-lookalike has a tiny, delicate face, with a cute pointed nose and weird golden eyes that look like they might be able to turn you inside out just with a glance. Satori wants them to look at him. He finds that he wouldn't mind being dissected. 

But the tiny person doesn't seem to notice anyone but Rooster-Head. They let him talk and talk and laugh obnoxiously, and they do not look annoyed, or bored, or excited—they just look, tilted up toward Rooster-Head ever so softly. And when the water break ends, they retreat once more behind their dark, dark hair, smaller than ever. Satori doesn't know if he'd rather cradle them or crush them in his hands. 

It's a close game, but Shiratorizawa loses to the cats. On the bus home, Satori's teammates are quiet, lost in their own visions of next year's victory. 

All Satori sees is a trace of intelligent gold, and dark, choking black.

II.

The next time he sees him, it is an accident. Satori is visiting his sister in Tokyo, during the summer break in his third year of high school. Sora takes him out for ice cream, and he's telling her about the latest _Shonen Jump_ when his brain stutters to a halt and his mouth follows.

Across the street, walking out of a video game store, is Sadako-kid, swamped in a fading red hoodie despite the August sun. They clutch a PSP and do not look up from the screen, but Satori _knows_ it is the same person. He recognizes that shimmering hair. He longs to reach out and catch some of it to keep for his very own. 

His chocolate ice cream is forgotten, melting little by little, seeping into the crevices of his fingers, as he wonders whether he might be able to go and talk to the mystery kid. It would only take him a few steps, a few words, a few seconds. 

He has almost decided to just get up and go do it when someone else strolls out of the video game store: Rooster-Head, his hair as wild as ever and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

"Kenmaaaaa," he cries, loud enough to carry across the crowded street, and drapes himself over Sadako-kid's shoulders. "Why did you leave without telling me?" 

Sadako—no, _Kenma_ —merely shrugs. His voice is too soft for Satori to hear, but whatever he says causes Rooster-Head to wail in feigned anguish and bury his face in Kenma's neck. 

A hot rod drives itself into Satori's chest, turning his lungs into blown glass. He is vaguely aware of Sora asking him something, trying to get his attention, but all he can see is the way Kenma rolls his eyes before twisting to kiss Rooster-Head on the mouth. 

_Wrong_ , Satori's glass lungs are screaming, _wrongwrongwrong_ , even as he wonders whether Kenma's mouth is warm, and whether those little pink lips taste like sugar candy. He wants them for himself, and yet, there is Rooster-Head, taking all of it and sharing nothing. _Selfish, selfish, selfish_ , echoes around Satori's mind like the sound of one of Wakatoshi's spikes. 

Kenma does not hear, of course, and he pays no heed to Rooster-Head's noisy adoration, either, absorbed in his PSP as he allows himself to be steered away in a display of perfect trust that drags Satori's stomach up his throat and between his teeth. 

Perhaps next time, he thinks dismally, he will let Wakatoshi use his skull for spiking practice.

III.

The last time he sees him, it has been a good few years, and spiking practice is a thing of the past, although Wakatoshi, with his daily messages and stiff (but undeniably affectionate) mannerisms, is not.

Satori has never quite managed to forget Kenma, although, he tells himself, he has tried. 

(Tried, and failed—for he has burned his tongue on golden magma, and he drowned long ago in silken ink.) 

He is waiting for a plane that will carry him far, far away, to Paris, where he hopes to find a mimicry of meaning in his craft. He idly wonders how much longer he will be waiting, and whether he will spend his life chasing what was never his to begin with, and that's when he notices him, on the other side of the glass. 

His hair, though it has grown, no longer hides his face, and he does not shrink into himself, but stands tall—as tall as possible for someone so tiny ( _so precious, so lovely,_ his ribcage whispers, and it shudders through all his bones). And even without seeing those distinguishing eyes, Satori knows it is Kenma, because his treacherous heart begins to gnaw at itself as though it never remembered to stop. 

Kenma is waiting, too, but not for an escape. Satori knows this, because nearby, a crowd exits a gate, and one tall, familiar figure, in a slightly rumpled suit, with that eternally-impressive bedhead, catches sight of Kenma and ignites. He has traded his paring-knife smirk for a wide, easy grin, and when he all but runs through the exit doors, Kenma throws himself into his arms, and Satori thinks sourly that he's glad he can't hear them. They hold on to each other like burrs clinging to woolen socks, a stepping-stone in the stream of people around them, oblivious to the odd stares and occasional grimaces that are sent their way. Eventually, they depart, hand in hand, and Satori remembers what oxygen tastes like. 

_Paris_ , he thinks, closing his eyes and willing himself to be disenchanted, to unravel the threads of fascination that wove a net around his heart in the color of Kenma's skin. If he were anyone else, perhaps he would be satisfied with simply looking, or even find some selfless joy in seeing Kenma's own crystalline happiness. 

But Satori has always been greedy, wanting more than he is allowed, and collecting all he can. So as he drifts through the boarding gate, on his way to a new life, he vows to drive out the memory of gold, and never again to look over his shoulder at the shadow of a beautiful ghost.


End file.
